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Days 61-66: The Fallacy Behind the Religious Right’s “Traditional Marriage”

“Homosexuality askews the rights of traditional marriage.”

“Same sex marriage is an abomination to God’s traditional marriage.”

“Traditional marriage doesn’t include same-sex couples.”

The aforementioned statements are some of the most common reasons that many Christian fundamentalists use as to why there should not be a legalization of same-sex marriages across the board.

To them, same-sex marriages are encroaching on the rights of traditional marriage. That somehow, a man committing his life to another man is somehow a road of filth and devastation to the word “marriage” in and out of the Christian faith.

It’s same-sex marriage that is the “demon”.

Not countless divorces and remarriage.

Not countless affairs.

Not child pornography.

Not sexual assaults.

But the blessed ceremony between two people who love each other that so happen to share the same genitalia that is ripping apart “God’s traditional marriage.”

Let’s use their definition of traditional marriage: marriage and its customs and practices in a particular culture; Christian views on marriage as keeping the sanctity of a heterosexual couple.

Here’s my definition of a “traditional marriage” as used by the religious right to justify their hate-mongering, bigotry, social injustices against people who just love the same-sex.

But, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, and search the Holy Scriptures and see what it says or implies about traditional marriage. As many anti-gay individuals use Leviticus to justify their intolerance, I will also be using the book of Leviticus to do the same.

No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord. – Levitcus 18:6 (NIV)

Levitcus 18:6 goes without saying in post-modern Christianity, nevertheless, if one has had sexual escapades with a close relative, then surely they have no point of respect to spout out about “traditional marriage”.

Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness. – Levitcus 18:17 (NIV)

Surely, if a man has every approached a mother and daughter for a little three-way fun, he surely wouldn’t have the audacity to speak of “traditional marriage.”

Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period. – Levitcus 18:19 (NIV)

So any sexual interaction – oral, vaginal, or anal – are an abomination according to the “LAW” of Levitcus (which is one of the poorest books to Bible thump someone with). But homosexuals are ruining the sanctity of marriage……..

While we’re at it, let’s just throw in some other interesting tidbits from the Bible:

Jesus declares that not only is adultery an “abomination” but in Matthew 5:28, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

How many proponents of “traditional marriage” have committed adultery with their own heart? But then have the misplaced audacity to point out a same-sex couple, who may have more respect, commitment, and love than their heterosexual counterparts – as an abomination?

The Bible is filled with paradox after paradox, and unfortunately Fundamentalist Christians have for too long misused and abused my God’s love, grace, and mercy to fit their personal narrative of hate and bigotry.

They have used the Bible in a literal sense for far too long.

They have conveyed my God as a vengeful one – just as those that take the entire Old Testament word-for-word and portray him as that.

Newsflash: God isn’t the problem. He never was. The issue is people who proclaim injustices in His name are doing a disservice to Jesus Christ. They are doing a disservice to His love. They are doing a disservice to their sons and daughters.

In a similar instance this week, someone went up to my son and told him “You are going to burn in hell because you are a faggot.”

Four days later it still hurts my heart so much. I shed tears of losing hope in a humanity that I still believe in. I believe in the goodness of people despite their ignorance and belligerence. But it still hurts.

I hurt for my son. I hurt for his heart. I hurt for his happiness.

I really have no care if someone calls me a “bad Christian” or “I’m going to hell for raising a faggot” ….. I don’t care if I lose family members, because if people want to ostracize me…condemn me….verbally stone me….for desiring equality for all humans in marriage?

Then I’ll gladly don the “Bad Christian” hat with flair.

So what is “traditional marriage”? It’s just marriage between two people – straight or gay – that want to spend the rest of their lives with one another.

Also, for those that spout, “What does sexual immorality have to do with traditional marriage? Me having a few affairs doesn’t make me unqualified to speak on traditional marriage and against homosexual marriage.” It doesn’t?

After all, isn’t the religious right that use God, Jesus, and the scriptures to justify their horrid logic as to why homosexuality is wrong? As to why same-sex marriages are an abomination? And in the process they softly compare homosexuality to pedophilia and sexual immorality.

It’s not who we are as in our sexual orientations that matter when we want to finalize a committed union, but why.

Rev. Mark Gallagher, a Unitarian minister, in 2004 asked “what about a marriage could have that quality of spiritual beauty? What makes for sacredness in a marriage?” He names four things.

“First and foremost, mutual love. A feeling of heightened affection, respect, concern, and appreciation between marital partners. It gives a certain sparkle to the time spent together, and potentially to the entire experience of life. The presence of love makes a marriage sacred.

“Fidelity contributes to the sacredness of a marriage. Commitments fulfilled. Coming through. Hanging in. Placing the integrity of the relationship over personal preference and convenience. It builds a powerful trust. Fidelity makes a marriage sacred.

“Intimacy brings sacredness in a marriage. When two people reveal themselves to one another over time, they cannot help but gain acquaintance with the deep regions of the human experience. They get to know one another, of course. But more importantly, they get to know themselves.

Through relating intimately over time, deeper honesty and authenticity become possible. This is the spiritual journey to know and be known, behind the public charade, however subtle or crude that may be.

“And forgiveness generates sacredness in a marriage. We all make mistakes and need forgiveness. Our spiritual liberation requires that we become masters of forgiveness letting go of resentment for slights and injuries. The prolonged togetherness of marriage will present myriad opportunities for the practice of forgiveness. When forgiveness flows freely, there is a palpable quality of gentleness and compassion.”

The term “traditional marriage” is used with selfish, greedy, gluttonous blinders on only to further implicate that homosexuality is some sort of disease. There’s only one disease here, well actually two:

1.) Perpetuating this hateful campaign to further ostracize a small population and